Brooks Sought Office Security Sweep Before Police Hacking Probe

By Jeremy Hodges -
Jan 13, 2014

Rebekah Brooks told News Corp. (NWSA)
officials to conduct a security “sweep” of her office and
phone the day before London police started an investigation into
phone-hacking allegations at company newspapers.

Brooks, then the chief executive officer of News Corp.’s
U.K. unit, asked security head Mark Hanna to “sweep” her
office and phone “discreetly” in a Jan. 25, 2011, e-mail,
William Clegg, Hanna’s lawyer, said today at a London trial.

The phone-hacking scandal involving News Corp.’s News of
the World tabloid had been simmering for almost five years in
2011 before media coverage and civil lawsuits led police to re-open an investigation into the allegations on Jan. 26 of that
year. Andy Coulson, a former editor of the weekly newspaper, had
resigned from his post as communications director for U.K. Prime
Minister David Cameron on Jan. 21.

Brooks, 45, Coulson and Hanna are among seven people on
trial over wrongdoing at the company’s British publications.
Both are accused of obstruction of justice over the
disappearance of boxes of notebooks from News Corp. archives in
the days before Brooks was arrested in July 2011.

The discovery on July 4, 2011, that a murdered school
girl’s phone had been hacked in 2002 by the News of the World
triggered public outrage that led News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch to close the tabloid and to at least three police
investigations.

The jury was told today about security measures put in
place during the scandal to protect News Corp. executives,
including the diversion of abusive mail sent by members of the
public.

Brooks was given the nickname “Black Hawk” by the
security team headed by Hanna, while other executives were
dubbed “Kestrel” and “Sparrow Hawk,” Clegg said.

Hanna is standing trial accused of obstructing the course
of justice along with Brooks, her husband Charlie and her
assistant Cheryl Carter.